March is user experience month at Belatrix

This month we’re conducting a series of webinars, blog posts and articles about user experience (UX). UX today is no longer the narrow field of simply developing a compelling user interface for your software, but is rather a rich, multi-disciplinary area encompassing innovation, and product and service design.

UX is one of the top priorities for product developers and for organizations, because customers simply expect that they will intuitively understand how to use your software – and if they don’t, they will rapidly move on to using your competitor’s products. And the data underlies why, if you’re not already, you should be investing in UX research, design, testing, and validation. 88% of consumers are unlikely to return to your site if they’ve had a bad experience; 48% of people stated the website design is the number one factor in determining your business’ credibility; and over 25% of apps are never used again after the first day, while 95% are abandoned within a month.

In Forrester Research’s annual Customer Experience Index ranking, those companies with a compelling customer experience significantly outperformed the broader market. Reflective of this data, UX is transitioning away from just being how you will stand out, to the very basis upon which you will build your product.

But what can you do to improve your user and customer experience? In the next few weeks we will be hosting a series of webinars and publishing a variety of content providing specific advice on how to stay ahead of your competition.

First up, I am delighted that this week, Bruno Vilches will demonstrate how to successfully scope and estimate a UX project. In a study conducted by the Standish Group research firm of projects across industries, results showed that only 39% of the projects were successful in delivering a result on time and within budget. 43% were challenged, meaning they had to scramble or find extra resources, and the rest (18%) failed outright, running out of money or time before they could deliver. Make sure this is not the case with your UX project, and join this webinar.

Following this webinar, we will turn our attention to the design principles which underlie UX. In this webinar we’ll define the difference between UX and graphic design, as well as examine how they are related.We’ll also explore the difference between art and design, the importance of the user in graphic design, image-based versus text-based design, typographical principles, the concept and consistency of good design, and finally we’ll examine color theory, balance and weight.

You can follow all our UX material using twitter with the hashtag #BestUX2016. We’ll also be live tweeting during both webinars.

Charles Green is part of the marketing team at Belatrix Software, based in Lima, Perú. Previously he was the global lead analyst for the product development/ R&D services market at Forrester Research. His research coverage at Forrester also extended more broadly to technology and business services, and in particular data and business intelligence services. He continues to pay close attention to the business services industry, and blogs at www.digitalinca.com